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The Syria Files

Thursday 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012. This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture. At this time Syria is undergoing a violent internal conflict that has killed between 6,000 and 15,000 people in the last 18 months. The Syria Files shine a light on the inner workings of the Syrian government and economy, but they also reveal how the West and Western companies say one thing and do another.

Important and good article

Email-ID

2101411

Date

2011-04-19 03:18:50

From

n.kabibo@mopa.gov.sy

To

leila.sibaey@mopa.gov.sy, fl@mopa.gov.sy

List-Name

Important and good article

---- Msg sent via @Mail - http://atmail.com/

Tues. 19 Apr. 2011

COUNTER PUNCH

Disgraceful Distortions by The Guardian: Syria and the Delusions of the
Western Pressâ€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦...â€¦â€¦â€¦.1

HYPERLINK \l "_top" HOME PAGE

Disgraceful Distortions by The Guardian

Syria and the Delusions of the Western Press

By PETER LEE

Counter Punch (important American blog),

17 Apr. 2011,

On April 10, a mysterious and bloody incident occurred near the seaside
town of Banyas, in Syria.

Nine members of a Syrian army patrol were shot to death and twenty five
were woundedâ€”the single bloodiest incident in the Syrian uprising to
date.

Western news services largely ignored the incident and concentrated on
reports of the armyâ€™s move to encircle and pacify Banyas.

When they did report the incident, some were in thrall to their
preconceptions and their sources in the democracy movement and have
credulously entertained the most improbable explanations for the
incident: that the soldiers were murdered by one of their own number,
who refused orders to fire on demonstrators; or that the Syrian secret
service ordered officers to shoot their men in order to foment a
provocation.

The most likely explanationâ€”that infiltrators may be working to create
chaos and destabilize the regime under cover of the demonstrations, and
simply pumped two army trucks full of bullets in a carefully-planned
ambushâ€”has for the most part eluded them.

But even the paranoid have real enemies, and Syriaâ€™s President Bashar
al-Assadâ€”who chattered vaguely and counterproductively about
â€œconspiraciesâ€ in his address to the Syrian parliament-- has reason
to worry about dangerous opponents, now in exile but perhaps willing to
stir up trouble.

The list of potential opponents includes Rifaat al-Assad, Basharâ€™s
uncle, brother of Hafez al-Assad. Rifaat tried to mount a coup against
Hafez, but was forced into exile in 1984.

A more dangerous opponent is perhaps Abdul Halim Khaddam. The
all-around fixer for Hafez and number 3 in the regime, he could not
reconcile himself to the elevation of the relatively unproven Bashar at
the age of 34 on Hafezâ€™s death.

He went into exile in Paris, followed by an indictment for treason. In
France, he claimed leadership of an opposition organization, the
National Salvation Front, and offered damaging statements on the
involvement of the Syrian leadership in the murder of Rafiq Hariri, the
Lebanese statesman.

Khaddamâ€™s home town is Banyas, where the massacre occurred.

By a remarkable coincidence, the events in Banyas attracted the close
attention of one of Americaâ€™s chief Syria watchers: Dr. Joshua Landis
of the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Landisâ€™ wife is Syrian, and her cousin, Lt. Colonel Yasir Qash`ur
, was one of the two Syrian army officers who died in the incident.

In an April 13 post titled, Western Press Misled: Who Shot the Nine
Syrian Soldiers in Banyas? Not Syrian Security Forces, Landis debunked
the claims reported by Agence France Presse and the Guardian. He also
highlighted the pathetic ordeal of one wounded soldier badgered by
anti-government activists but denying that he had been shot by security
forcesâ€”only to have the video go out on Youtube the West with the
canard attached.

Landis, an extremely circumspect and careful observer, wrote bluntly:

A number of news reports by AFP, the Guardian, and other news agencies
and outlets are suggesting that Syrian security forces were responsible
for shooting nine Syrian soldiers, who were killed in Banyas on Sunday.
Some versions insist that they were shot for refusing orders to shoot at
demonstrators.

Considerable evidence suggests this is not true and that western
journalists are passing on bad information.

My wife spoke this morning to one witness who denied the story. He is
colonel `Uday Ahmad, brother-in-law of Lt. Col. Yasir Qash`ur, who was
shot and killed in Banyas with eight other Syrian soldiers on Sunday
April 10, 2011. Uday Ahmad was sitting in the back seat of the truck
which Yasir was driving when he was shot dead on the highway outside
Banyas. Uday said that shooting was coming from two directions. One was
from the roof of a building facing the highway and another from people
hiding behind the cement median of the highway. They jumped up and shot
into the two trucks carrying Syrian troops, killing 9. Col. Uday
survived. Here is video of the shooting shown on Syrian TV sent by my
brother-in-law, Firas, who lives in Latakia.

* Video of one soldier purportedly confessing to being shot in the back
by security forces and linked to by the Guardian has been completely
misconstrued. The Guardian irresponsibly repeats a false interpretation
of the video provided by an informant.

1. This is what the Guardian writes: â€œFootage on YouTube shows an
injured soldier saying he was shot in the back by security forces.â€

The video does not â€œsupportâ€ the story that the Guardian says it
does. The soldier denies that he was ordered to fire on people. Instead,
he says he was on his way to Banyas to enforce security. He does not say
that he was shot at by government agents or soldiers. In fact he denies
it. The interviewer tries to put words in his mouth but the soldier
clearly denies the story that the interviewer is trying to make him
confess to. In the video, the wounded soldier is surrounded by people
who are trying to get him to say that he was shot by a military officer.
The soldier says clearly, â€œThey [our superiors] told us, â€˜Shoot at
them IF they shoot at you.â€™â€

The interviewer tried to get the wounded soldier to say that he had
refused orders to shoot at the people when he asked : â€œWhen you did
not shoot at us what happened?â€ But the soldier doesnâ€™t understand
the question because he has just said that he was not given orders to
shoot at the people. The soldier replies, â€œNothing, the shooting
started from all directionsâ€. The interviewer repeats his question in
another way by asking, â€œWhy were you shooting at us, we are
Muslims?â€ The soldier answers him, â€œI am Muslim too.â€ The
interviewer asks, â€œSo why were you going to shoot at us?â€ The
soldier replies, â€œWe did not shoot at people. They shot at us at the
bridge.â€

The Guardianâ€™s pseudonymous reporter in Damascus reported the
allegations, incorrect, at least in the matter of the injured soldier
shown on Youtube, and used the allegation to paint a dire picture of a
military and a regime facing disintegration:

Syrian soldiers shot for refusing to fire on protesters.

Katherine Marsh â€“ a pseudonym â€“ in Damascus

guardian, Tuesday 12 April 2011

Witnesses claim soldiers who disobeyed orders in Banias were shot by
security services as crackdown on protests intensifies.

Syrian soldiers have been shot by security forces after refusing to fire
on protesters, witnesses said, as a crackdown on anti-government
demonstrations intensified.

Witnesses told al-Jazeera and the BBC that some soldiers had refused to
shoot after the army moved into Banias in the wake of intense protests
on Friday.

Human rights monitors named Mourad Hejjo, a conscript from Madaya
village, as one of those shot by security snipers. â€œHis family and
town are saying he refused to shoot at his people,â€ said Wassim Tarif,
a local human rights monitor.

Footage on YouTube shows an injured soldier saying he was shot in the
back by security forces Footage on YouTube shows an injured soldier
saying he was shot in the back by security forces, while another video
shows the funeral of Muhammad Awad Qunbar, who sources said was killed
for refusing to fire on protesters. Signs of defections will be worrying
to Syriaâ€™s regime. State media reported a different version of events,
claiming nine soldiers had been killed in an ambush by an armed group in
Banias.

According to Landisâ€™ informants, the threat of Khaddamist
infiltrators, though of limited interest to the Western media, is a
matter of considerable anxiety among the pro-democracy activists.

Landis quoted an e-mail from the Damascus correspondent of la Republica,
Alix van Buren, who wrote him:

Josh, the picture is extremely confusing and it is often impossible to
confirm data on the web. The absence of most foreign media here in Syria
adds to that murky picture. What I can contribute about the question of
â€œforeign meddlingâ€ is the following. These are direct quotes from
leading and respected opposition members:

Sunday two of ex-Vice President Khaddamâ€™s men were arrested in Banyas.
A human rights activist confirmed that they were sowing trouble by
distributing money and weapons. I donâ€™t know what to make of the
confessions of the three guys shown on Syrian tv today. However, several
Syrian dissidents believe in the presence and the role of
â€œinfiltratorsâ€. Michel Kilo, though he accepts that possibility,
cautioned that the issue of â€œinfiltrators and conspiraciesâ€ should
not be exploited as an obstacle in the quick transition towards
democracy.

Haytham al-Maleh was the most explicit in pointing to the meddling of
Khaddam people in and around Banias. He also mentioned the â€œloose
dogsâ€ loyal to Rifaâ€™t al-Assad. According to him they are active
particularly along the coast between Tartous and Latakya. Here is a link
to my interview with al-Maleh in La Repubblica.

The veteran blogger Ahmed Abu ElKheir, unfortunately now in prison for
the second time in less than a month, and not yet released, has links to
Banyas. The first, peaceful demonstration of Saturday morning was also
sparked by the request for his release. In his Facebook profile, before
being arrested, he too lashed out against Khaddam. Several commentators
from that area agreed with him, cursing Khaddam for meddling â€œwith the
blood of the innocentsâ€.

If Dr. Landis is correct about the events in Banyas, the democratic stew
in Syria has a dangerous element of foreign provocateurs delivering arms
and moneyâ€”and disinformation of a certain intensity and sophistication
direct to Western journalists.

Landis writes dismissively of a literally bloodstained order allegedly
issued by the Mukhabarat instructing officers that it was
â€œacceptableâ€ to shoot their own men:

A three-page document purporting to be a â€œtop secretâ€ Mukhabarat
memo, giving instruction to intelligence forces that â€œit is acceptable
to shoot some of the security agents or army officers in order to
further deceive the enemyâ€ has been published on the web and
republished by all4Syria. A copy was sent to me with a translation by a
journalist with a leading magazine for my thoughts. It has blood
splattered on it and is clearly a fake. What army, after all, would
survive even days if its top officers were publishing orders to shoot
its own officers? Not a good moral [sic] booster for the troops.

Alleged mischief making by Khaddam and Rifaat al-Assad have an
additional, regional dimension.

Saudi Arabia is quietly directing a pushback against Shiâ€™a and Iranian
influence in the Middle East, most conspicuously by its suppression of
the largely Shiâ€™a demonstrators in Bahrain, but also through a
confrontational war of words (and expulsion of Iranian diplomats)
conducted through the Gulf Co-Ordination Council of Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Qatar, and the other sheikdoms.

Iran is anxious that Saudi Arabia is determined to destabilize Iranâ€™s
chief Middle East ally, Syria, as part of its effort to roll back
Iranian influence and buttress the power of Sunni forces in the region.

The Assad regime is vulnerable to sectarian, anti-Shiâ€™a agitation
because the Assad family belongs to a minority sect, the Alawites, that
are somewhat Shiâ€™aesque and mystical in their observances. The
Alawites only comprise 12 per cent of the population. Their religious
practices are eyed askance by strict Sunni observers and opponents of
the Iranian alliance, such as Khaddam, sometimes stir the sectarian pot
with warnings of the creeping â€œShiâ€™aizationâ€ of Syria.

The level of Iranian concernâ€”and a much interesting tittle-tattle
concerning Khaddam and his alleged activities against the Assad
regimeâ€”can be extracted from an op-ed carried on the website of the
Iranian media outlet Press TV.

Titled Saudi Arabia, Jordan Behind Syria Unrest, it states:

Saudi Arabia, which often bows to US and Israel's policies in the
region, tried to destabilize Bashar al-Assad's government by undermining
his rule.

To this end, Saudi Arabia paid 30 million dollars to former vice
president Abdul Halim Khaddam to quit Assad's government.

Khaddam sought asylum in France in 2005 with the aid of Saudi Arabia and
began to plot against the Syrian government with the exiled leaders of
the Muslim Brotherhood.

Khaddam, who is a relative of Saudi King Abdullah and former Lebanese
premier Rafiq Hariri, used his great wealth to form a political group
with the aim of toppling Bashar al-Assad.

The triangle of Khaddam-Abdullah-Hariri is well-known in the region as
their wives are sisters.

Khaddam's entire family enjoys Saudi citizenship and the value
investment by his sons, Jamal and Jihad, in Saudi Arabia is estimated at
more than USD 3 billion.

Therefore, with the start of popular protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya,
Yemen and Bahrain, the Saudi regime saw an opportunity to drive a wedge
between Tehran, Damascus and Beirut axis.

Due to the direct influence of the Saudi Wahhabis on Syria's Muslim
Brotherhood, the people of the cities of Daraa and Homs, following Saudi
incitement and using popular demands as an excuse began resorting to
violence.

It is reported that the United States, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
formed joint operational headquarters in the Saudi Embassy in Belgium to
direct the riots in southern Syria. Abdul Halim Khaddam, who held the
highest political, executive and information posts in the Syrian
government for more than 30 years, is said to have been transferred from
Paris to Belgium to direct the unrest.

The reason for this was that based on French law, political asylum
seekers cannot work against their countries of origin in France and
therefore Khaddam was transferred to Brussels to guide the riots.

Jordan equipped the Muslim Brotherhood in the two cities with logistical
facilities and personal weapons.

Although, Bashar al-Assad promised implementation of fundamental changes
and reforms after the bloody riot in the country, the Brotherhood
followed continued to incite protesters against him.

The Syrian state television recently broadcast footage of armed activity
in the border city of Daraa by a guerilla group, which opened fire on
the people and government forces. It is said that the group, which is
affiliated to Salafi movements, obtained its weapons from Jordan and
Saudi Arabia.

Because Syria's ruling party is from the Alevi tribes associated with
the Shias, the Brotherhood, due to its anti-Shia ideas, has tried for
three decades to topple the Alevi establishment of the country.

Hence, the recent riots in Syria are not just rooted in popular demands
and harbor a tribal aspect and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the US are
directing the unrest for their future purposes.

It looks like some enemies of Bashar al-Assadâ€™s regime are ready to
fight with violence on the streets and roads of Syriaâ€”and
disinformation on the front pages of the newspapers of the world.

Peter Lee is a businessman who has spent thirty years observing,
analyzing, and writing about internatyional affairs. Lee writes
frequently for CounterPunch and can be reached at HYPERLINK
"mailto:peterrlee-2000@yahoo.com" peterrlee-2000@yahoo.com